Page 19 of The Fallen and the Kiss of Dusk (Crowns of Nyaxia #4)

At first, through my pounding headache, I couldn’t make out what I was looking at. It looked as if the hills that I knew so well had become deserts, dusty sand rippling across them.

And then I realized: it was leaves.

Dry, crumpled leaves that had died of starvation waiting for a sun that never rose, leaving knotted, bare branches reaching toward the empty sky. All while the city was brighter than I’d ever witnessed it, glowing crimson as if every single distant stained glass window was alight. And the bay?—

The bay was full of warships.

Black ships bearing the deep green flags of the House of Shadow. And then, less familiar, white sails upon long, elegant boats, each bearing the red visage of a weeping lady.

The armada of the House of Blood.

“Shit,” Mische whispered.

The consequences of an eternal night. Withering plants. An endless black sky. And a vampire empire ready to seize the opportunity they’d been given.

The gods had spoken of it. But seeing it made it real.

My mind bounced from question to question, building a web of unnerving potential answers.

If the House of Blood was here, that meant that things were dire enough that Egrette was willing to put aside centuries of bad blood—but why, then, was there no House of Night?

Was this Nyaxia’s order? And if so, what did that mean for us?

“At least this will mean Nyaxia will, hopefully, be too distracted to pay too much attention to us,” I said.

But Mische just stared into the sky. There was nothing, I had learned, that could silence her quite like when she felt that she had too much to say.

“You had better not be regretting it, Mische,” I said.

Still, she said nothing.

“I saw it, when everything else had faded,” I said.

“You, driving that arrow into Atroxus’s throat.

It was more beautiful than any part of death or life I’d ever witnessed.

The way you looked seizing fate with your bare hands.

You saved the lives of millions that night.

Atroxus deserved his end, god or not. Never regret giving it to him.

Never. ” I couldn’t stop the hint of cold hatred from seeping into my voice.

Because I wasn’t thinking of Atroxus’s attempted massacre of the vampire race.

I was thinking about an eight-year-old Mische on her knees before him.

Seemed like proper punishment to me. Even if I would have preferred it to be a bit slower.

Mische gave me a weak, unconvinced smile. Then she turned to the ransacked office.

“You think that Nyaxia will be looking for us, too? I can’t imagine that she’s exactly going to be happy once she realizes that you’re attempting to ascend.”

I thought back to my last encounter with Nyaxia, with Mische’s charred body in my arms. “No, I’d imagine not.”

“At least being in Nyaxia’s territory means the White Pantheon won’t be coming for us anytime soon.”

The gods of the White Pantheon had limited visibility into Nyaxia’s territory, and never crossed into it.

Still, this seemed only a small comfort.

We had once thought that about the underworld, too, and Mische had still been attacked by a divine soldier there.

Rules couldn’t protect us if they were now being rewritten.

I peered out the window again, into the night sky. A faint red cast glowed from behind the moon, like the ring of an eclipse. My brow furrowed. At first I thought I had imagined it. Even now, it was so faint that it could be a trick of the eye.

But if it wasn’t?.?.?.?we had just gotten very, very lucky.

“What?” Mische said, craning her neck to follow my gaze. “You’re making that face.”

I was going to regret asking. “That face?”

“The decoding magical complexities face. Like this.” She lowered her brows over narrowed eyes and stroked her chin.

I had been right. I did regret asking. Still, I tried very hard to look offended and not amused.

“I don’t—never mind.” I peered out at the moon and the pink cast behind it.

“The mask is in the House of Shadow, and if I’m right about what I’m looking at, we have our opportunity to get it soon.

If we can avoid attracting Nyaxia’s attention until then. ”

“It’s in the House of Shadow?”

“It’s—”

A wave of dizziness passed over me, and I found myself leaning back against a desk not entirely of my own accord. One of the rotten wooden legs gave out, and I almost stumbled.

Mische caught my shoulder as I readjusted my weight.

“You need to rest here until you’ve recovered.”

“No. I need to find my notes.” I nudged a pile of tattered parchment with my boot. Heartbreaking. “Or what’s left of them. I can explain as we work. We have no time to waste.”

“I mean this in a nice way, but I don’t think you’re very useful like this.”

“There’s no nice way to call me useless, Dawndrinker.”

“Only temporarily useless, Warden.”

I let out a sigh of frustration.

Luce trotted up to Mische, holding a sword—the sword Mische had been carrying when I pulled her through the veil, which must have been abandoned downstairs.

“I never thought I’d see this again.” I took the blade from Luce, turning it around in my hands.

The weapon seemed to vibrate against my skin, familiar and unfamiliar all at once.

It looked the same as it had when I had wielded it, and yet, something now seemed undeniably different.

As if its magic now sang in a different key.

“It went to the underworld and back with you,” I murmured. “Interesting.”

I held it out to Mische, who shook her head. “It’s yours.”

“I think it stopped being mine a long time ago.”

“I don’t need a sword anyway. I can use my—” She held out her hands and wiggled her fingers in what I could only imagine was a comically exaggerated pantomime of either a hunting wolf or a very handsy drunk.

“Pray tell, what is that supposed to be?”

“My death touch,” she said, as if it were obvious.

It was a genuine struggle not to laugh.

“You absolutely will not. We cannot let anyone see what you are. Especially not in the House of Shadow.” I knew too well what happened to those deemed useful and unusual in the House of Shadow. The thought of Mische, in a tiny dark room, strung up along with all of Gideon’s other?—

I slammed the door against that image. I reached for the hood on Mische’s jacket and raised it, careful not to touch her skin.

Beneath the hood, she looked relatively normal.

The sheen of death was easy to miss unless one looked very, very closely.

But just in case, I also grabbed a pen from the desk and scratched a series of small glyphs into the edge of the fabric.

An illusion, to make her look more?.?.?.?alive. Gideon had specialized in the art of illusions, and though it had never been my strong suit, he had taught me well. It wasn’t perfect, but it would suffice for casual glances.

“An additional precaution,” I said. “And take the sword. Not a debate.”

I handed it to her, and she reluctantly took it.

“There’s a drawer at the bottom of the farthest bookcase in the other study.” I gestured to the door. “Second to the ground. Gather everything in it and bring it back here.”

Mische nodded, then disappeared through the door. I sagged into a chair, which groaned under my weight.

“Sun take me,” I muttered. “Divinity isn’t all it’s said to be.”

Luce wound around my legs. My hand fell to the top of her head, relishing the familiar comfort of the shape of it. She made a sound that resembled a purr.

I suppressed a smile. “Well, aren’t you sentimental.”

She gave me an accusatory glance.

“Me?” I said. “Never. I knew you’d turn up when it pleased you.”

She let out a sniff that seemed to say, You missed me, and I know it.

My chest tightened. I stroked her shadowy body, scratching at the back of her neck. “Perhaps a little. Thank you, Luce.” I cast a glance to the door. “And thank you for watching over her.”

I rubbed her ears, and she let out a groan of pleasure. Then she sniffed me again.

“Do I seem different to you?” I asked.

She seemed to consider this. As it so often was, her answer was somehow obvious:

I smell new you. But I smell old you, too, and I prefer it.

My eyes narrowed. “Judgmental coming from?—”

But then a sudden awareness made me jolt upright. I sensed a presence here, in Morthryn’s halls. No, worse, multiple. Wraiths? Not wraiths. They were?—

A crash rang out down the hall. A strangled half cry.

Mische.

Luce felt it too. She bolted through the door. I followed—half stumbling—through the study. Out in the hall, I saw?—

Mische.

And a sword through her shoulder.

Everything froze. I took in the scene before me.

A Shadowborn soldier stood before Mische, knuckles white around his weapon, clearly caught off guard. More footsteps echoed from down the halls, both in front of us and behind, now rapidly approaching.

But all I saw was that blade.

“Get off of her.”

The words shook with compulsion. But though I could feel my magic so close, the well deeper than it had ever been, in my weakness I couldn’t break through to access it.

Mische let out a yelp as the soldier spun around to face me, pulling the blade free. There was no blood. The steel had simply passed right through her. She was, after all, a wraith.

But this logic meant nothing to me now.

The soldier’s eyes landed on me and widened. He had not recognized Mische, but he certainly recognized me.

He gasped, “You’re supposed to be?—”

But he didn’t get the rest out before I lunged for him. The shadows at the corners of the room quivered. The soldier’s mind stood before me, as easy to snap as delicate, frost-brittle branches.

And yet, I couldn’t quite?—

Mische shouted in warning, “Asar!”

Luce lunged for the soldier.

But now a whole slew of them poured into the room, alerted by the commotion. All bore the green uniforms of the Shadowborn guard.

I reached again for my magic, that tantalizingly deep well, as Mische’s blade was knocked from her grasp and Luce was smothered beneath three soldiers.

As a familiar presence rose up behind me.

As tendrils of darkness looped around, and around, and around my throat, and yanked.

My back hit the ground, and a familiar face looked down at me.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Elias said.

Mische leapt at him with a grunt of exertion.

Mische, don’t—! I shouted into her mind.

Too late.

Because Elias whipped around with his sword raised—his sword that I myself had enchanted for our journey through the Descent, to make it more effective against wraiths.

And his strike sent Mische to the ground.

I fought toward her. I was so, so close. Any other night, and I could have taken them all down with me. But the residual weakness of Mische’s touch still drained me. The power was there, and it was strong enough, and I just couldn’t reach it.

More footfalls. More soldiers. Someone shouted a command I didn’t hear. I watched Mische roll over, eyes closed, hands over her stomach.

And it was the last thing I saw when I plunged into darkness.